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Post by vegablack on Mar 2, 2009 15:19:05 GMT -5
People either love or hate Dumbledore. Charming, clever, and intelligent, he's been called devious and manipulative by his detractors, and loving, and brilliant by his friends. In some ways he is the most important figure in Harry Potter's life. What do you think of this wizard?
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Post by Chocolatepot on Mar 2, 2009 19:30:53 GMT -5
I'm so boring. 90% of the fandom hates him for whichever of their favorite characters he screwed around with, but I feel sorry for him. His family was so messed up, he had the whole Grindlewald debacle, and I just can't buy him not feeling it each time he had to use someone to further The Plan.
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Post by Mirabelle on Mar 3, 2009 0:09:44 GMT -5
Put me on the side of liking him. He definitely made some major mistakes and there's no way I'd ask his advice on estate planning but as it was said in OotP, "He's got style."
Come to think of it, there are a lot of similarities between him and Snape. I wonder if Dumbledore's past had a part in giving Snape a chance to redeem himself.
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Post by MWPP on Mar 3, 2009 15:50:10 GMT -5
I think he's brilliant.
Anytime someone takes on the responsibilites he did, they will inevitably be criticized from some angle.
At first I was completely annoyed with how Dumbledore handled Harry in OotP, but lately I've been trying to figure out how to tell someone who Voldemort can easily tap into the mind of, that that can happen, without letting V know. I think I might have warned the kids that there was a possibility, but even then V would get wind of it and be driven to more devious ways of infiltration. It is the conundrum of not transgressing Constituional/Magna Carta Rights, while keeping the people safe. About any action to keep the populace safe takes away from individual liberty, yet not doing anything puts all in jeopardy, too. Basically, if we let Harry in on it, Voldemort will know our secrets, if we don't, the story of OoTp happens. So what are acceptable losses?
So often Dumbledore seems to have at least an inkling of things to come, I've wondered if he has a timeturner and explores possible outcomes.
Anyhow, IMO Dumbledore = brilliant!
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Post by queenie on Apr 14, 2009 23:24:51 GMT -5
I still really like his character. In all my Harry Potter-related school assignments before Goblet of Fire came out, I always listed Dumbledore as among my favorites. I still like him, and I think the detail about him loving Grindelwald just made his character that much richer.
What I don't like much is what JKR did with Dumbledore's character. I didn't like how she made him absolutely infallible, able to predict things that take me a dreadful suspension of disbelief to accept, like Harry learning about the Deathly Hallows. I'd expected that Dumbledore's seemingly inexhaustible knowledge would, sooner or later, run out. Because that's the way things are - science marches on, and the Wise Father figure, despite his vast knowledge and love for the Hero, eventually becomes irrelevant. The Hero has to become his own Wise Man. I didn't like that Dumbledore stayed just as relevant and accurate after death as prior to death. I found that Harry relied on Dumbledore's judgment too much, for me, at least.
Also, I think that the way that JKR just cursory said, "Oh, Dumbledore's gay" a few months after the book came out, rather than daring to put it in the text of the book itself, where I think it would have had more power and relevance, was another disappointment in her handling of his character.
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Post by vegablack on Apr 17, 2009 13:32:01 GMT -5
I like Dumbledore as a character and I always enjoy reading him, but I found him a bit sinister from the first book. I was too much of a mom not to be taken back by a headmaster of a school who would give a child an invisibility cloak. It seemed an invitation to preform trouble. In the first book I had the very real sense that he knew Harry was trying to get the stone and wanted him to do it. I felt he did leave the school purposely. I couldn't put my finger on it but I felt he had a strange attitude toward kids. The scene where he knows Harry is looking at the mirror of erised and he tells Harry he knew how to be invisible led me to wonder how much he really knew about what was going on and how much he allowed to happen.
I dismissed my feelings as paranoid, and decided his laissez faire (spelled wrong I know) attitude was necessary for the plot to take place and was merely a plot device. But after the last book I felt that I'd been right. Dumbledore was "testing" Harry having him try his strength, for his future fight, which is a cold attitude to have toward a child. It sheds light on his statements in book five that he never expected to love him and that love clouded his feelings.
However much Dumbledore may have felt this was necessary it was still a choice he took in his treatment of Harry and not one I'm required to respect.
Dumbledore has the problem of many successful people -- the need to be admired. He needs people to think of him as good, as someone who never lies. Face it we see him lie and yet he allows himself to have the reputation as one who never does to the point that McGonagall claims D. never lies.
Why has he never once discussed his own early interest in power and the dark arts. He heads a school in which for two generations students are struggling with these issues and some are tragically choosing to follow the Dark Arts to seek power. Couldn't an honest discussion of his own feelings influence students who are in a sense his responsibility because he teaches them? But he never reveals anything about his past. Why? Because he can't stand the thought of people thinking him less than perfect. Its his mother all over again -- no one can know the family secrets even decades after it would no longer affect anyone. He is immersed in secrets and lies. He can't stand for people to think he is less than perfect.
I found it amazing that he could say to Harry that his guesses are rarely wrong. This claim of infallibility is especially strange coming from someone who made a decision in his youth that killed his sister. Bringing Grindelwald home to meet your disabled sister and your angry fourteen year old brother was rather a large miscalculation. But years later a mature Dumbledore can still claim that he rarely made mistakes. Wow.
I was unsurprised by JKR's statement. I sensed a romantic excitement in the letters between D. and G. I suspected they had a relationship.
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Post by MWPP on Apr 18, 2009 0:40:16 GMT -5
I don't have a problem with Dumbledore not talking about his past.
Until a "developing personality" (read that teenager/twenty-something) reaches a level of maturity (at oh, say, age 30 - maybe, if they are lucky) rather than hearing "these are the mistakes I made so you don't have to", they tend to throw it back as "Well, you did it so I can, too". Or, the teen/20 reacts by completely losing respect and going into an attack of angst and depression (ie: Harry's middle name).
I think allowing Harry extra leaway, he was testing the boy's character. There really is no good way to test it without letting a person get into situations and seeing how they handle the problems. I think JKR uses Ron as a comparison many times. His weaknesses are fairly normal/average, whereas Harry tends to chose the higher road (when he's not being an angsty teenaged idiot).
His not explaining it to Harry any of several times had to do with his not wanting to cause the kid pain or make it any harder than he knew it would be. If you know there is basically only one way stop the larger evil, you almost HAVE to chose the good of the many over the good of the one/few. In many ways Harry was a pawn, but there weren't a lot of other choices that would stop "the most powerful dark wizard" in ages.
Anyhow, I don't disrespect Dumbledore. He seems like he was in precarious situations and made the best of things. He learned from his own mistakes and became quite wise, but was still human and had foibles.
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Post by vegablack on Apr 18, 2009 3:52:14 GMT -5
He could have discussed his past with McGonagall for instance who admired him and trusted him. He could have discussed it with the other teachers all of whom had to deal with students who were enticed by the Dark Arts. Every teacher in the school had taught students who became death eaters. Surely the allure of power and the Dark Arts would have been something they wanted to understand and wanted to figure out how to combat. Might they not have learned something from hearing about D. experience.
I think it was too important to him to appear to be good and perfect to allow him to speak to anyone freely about his past. (I know from experience that this is a pitfall for religious and moral people. The need to hide their flaws.)
Don't you think a frank discussion of these things might have helped an adult Snape? Snape lived his adult life believing that he succumbed to temptations to which Dumbledore was immune.
It's one thing to test a child's character its another to encourage him to do things that will risk his life.
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Post by starsea on Apr 18, 2009 14:08:16 GMT -5
Why has he never once discussed his own early interest in power and the dark arts... Couldn't an honest discussion of his own feelings influence students who are in a sense his responsibility because he teaches them? Maybe he would have, if it didn't involve discussing what happened to his sister: that she was assaulted, that she accidentally killed her mother, that he might have killed her accidentally. If it was just admitting his own weakness, I don't think it would be so hard. The wizarding world is secret by nature. They have to make sure they hide everything they do. Look at the way the first war with Voldemort got swept under the collective carpet, so that only ten years afterwards, kids were almost completely ignorant of what happened. It's not surprising this attitude of "least said, soonest mended" filters down to individual families. Well, yes! He didn't say he 'never' made mistakes. He said 'rarely'. Bringing Grindelwald home was ONE mistake. It turned out to be a big one, yes. One that he regretted for the rest of his life, which haunted him even in his last moments, as we can see from the cave in HBP. But still, only one. The other mistake, as you point out, was keeping this secret and never admitting to the public or even the staff that he'd made this mistake and using his experience to help the Slytherin students. Rita Skeeter published her book before Snape's death. If he wanted to, Snape could have read that and found out what happened. Let's face it, Rita didn't actually LIE about anything in that book, she just didn't tell the whole story.
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Post by vegablack on Apr 18, 2009 15:43:44 GMT -5
ONe mistake that results in the death of a loved one is a rathe collosal one for someone who makes the claim to rarely make mistakes to overlook. The words imply that his mistakes are minor indeed that is the feeling one gets from his friends. One has the impression that he is truthful, trustworthy and infallible. When in actuality he has lied, desired to control other people and indeed take over the world and has made decisons that cost someone her life. His silence adds to the feeling that those who are tempted by the dark arts are "other" born to be that way or made so by their nature. In the years of 1970 through Harry's lifetime who would the truth about his own and his sister's past have hurt? His mother was dead; his father was dead; his sister was dead. I can't believe he had living relatives besides his brother, who I think would have welcomed some admissions. The only person he protected by his silence was himself and his own reputation.
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Post by siriusgirl on Apr 19, 2009 12:46:09 GMT -5
I still love Dumbledore. He was sorry for his mistakes, and he never said to be perfect. No one is. I don't get why people see him as being this selfish ruthless egomaniac
I don't think Dumbledore was wrong to not share his past with Harry or anyone. What happened to his family is past and it's obviously somehting he's ashamed of. We're not obliged to share our deepest darkest secrets with people. With teens/early twenties it might be ammunition. And Dumbledore has his right to privacy. He doesn't really have a confidante.
LOL!!! So true and that's what Harry was for most of OOTP and parts of TDH. He really blew it out of proportion about James and Sirius, and was like it's awful my mom hated my dad. I don't want to be like my dad anymore. Then with Dumbledore he's going on about Dumbledore not caring about him, not trusting him because he didn't share? I like Harry, but seriously, Harry never asked. It was years in the past, and not any of anyone's business. We all have things we keep to ourselves. Even Harry, as Ron and Hermione pointed out-- Dumbledore changed.
And DD being gay? Why did that need to be in the books? It was HARRY's story, and it didn't play a role. Again, Dumbledore's personal life is personal. Revealing it afterwards was the better idea IMO
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Post by queenie on Apr 19, 2009 18:07:59 GMT -5
And DD being gay? Why did that need to be in the books? It was HARRY's story, and it didn't play a role. Again, Dumbledore's personal life is personal. Revealing it afterwards was the better idea IMO Are you quite sure? There was an awful lot of Dumbledore in book seven. That was another of my problems of it - Dumbledore got about as much screen time as Harry, despite being dead. One could almost argue that all seven books are meant to parallel Harry and Dumbledore's life. Why else would Dumbledore get so much space in the book that's supposed to be about Harry's coming-of-age? (Except that it's not, because Harry only comes of age when he decides to accept to do everything that Dumbledore planned for him.) I think that the fact that Dumbledore loved Grindelwald was very relevant. It explains why Dumbledore let him ravage Europe for as long as he did. It's a testament to the power of love as a danger, as a blind. If Dumbledore had simply said, "I loved him, Harry," that would have been, what, four extra words? that would have brought Dumbledore down from his holier-than-thou pedestal and set him on a more human level. Hmm, maybe that's why Dumbledore didn't say it - he would not be able to admit, even in death, his mistake, that he had loved and forgotten his family. Ahh, maybe vegablack is right - so great is his hubris, his final flaw, that even in death he can't admit to a mistake.
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Post by vegablack on Apr 21, 2009 16:47:52 GMT -5
"Hmm, maybe that's why Dumbledore didn't say it - he would not be able to admit, even in death, his mistake, that he had loved and forgotten his family. Ahh, maybe vegablack is right - so great is his hubris, his final flaw, that even in death he can't admit to a mistake."
I think that was a big part of things. Also Harry was still a student to Dumbldedore. I don't know how comfortable he would have been to talk about his Romantic life with a student.
But I think Dumbledore was motivated as much by a desire for power as he was by love for G. I think G.'s ambition and desire for power were as attractive to Dumbledroe as his looks talent, and intelligence were. I think G.'s plans made him desirable to D. So his love of D. was inseparable from his ambition and love of power. So I don't like to use his love of G. as a reason to get him off the hook morally. I think Dumbledore thirst for power was as important or more as an explanation for his actions than any attraction he felt for G.
Tom Riddle said that Dumbledore was the only teacher he couldn't charm. This wasn't because D. was smarter than the others, but because he already had been taken in by a handsome, charming, talented, brilliant wizard. He recognized Voldemort because he'd met him before.
McGonagall tells Dumbledore that he had the same power that Voldemort had, but was too noble to use it. Dumbldedore says nothing in reply. He allows McGonagall to think things about him that are not true. He could very easily tell McGonagall that he hadn't always been so noble. But he doesn't want her to know that.
He is right when he says that Harry is the better man.
Isn't hypo
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Post by Ilene Bones on Apr 21, 2009 19:55:41 GMT -5
I don't have much to add right now, but it did occur to me that this debate is really a debate that goes beyond Dumbledore. Many parents struggle with whether, for example, they should tell their kids mistakes and bad decisions they made in the past, such as using drugs. They are afraid the kids will then say, "Well, if Mom and Dad did it and they turned out ok, I can do it to!" Exchange the words "dark magic" for "drugs" and I think this is part of the dilemma Dumbledore had. I think Dumbledore never turned away from his basic philosophy that ends justify the means if for the greater good, but his understanding of the greater good changed. I think that he thought that he had become a force for good and that if he confessed his past this would detract from his ability to do good.
As for Harry being the better man, I would agree, but comparing Harry and Dumbledore did make me wonder something. Is Harry going to tell his kids about using Imperio and Crucio during the war?
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Post by vegablack on Apr 21, 2009 20:44:12 GMT -5
I find the question of anyone finding out about Harry's using the crucio a very big one. Carrow is bound during the battle. We have no reason to think he died. Don't you think he would bring up the use of the cruciatus curse against him at his own trial? Since one of his major crimes will be using the curse on students?
Will Harry and Kingsley hush him up? Make a deal if he keeps quiet? Bump him off? Send him to jail without trial so he can't speak at all? If so that is a hell of a way for the new regime to start out. Especially since Harry and Kingsley are supposed to be cleaning up the Aurors and the ministry. Will no one care because they like the revenge of torturing someone who tortured them or if they are adults one of their kids?
Some things aren't healthy to hush up. How ever much we think its to the good of society or a precious organization. How ever tempting it is.
As to whether it is better to keep kids ignorant of your past. I have adult kids. I never lied to them about my past. I don't think it ever pays to lie to a teenager. When they figure it out you lied it just convinces them that they have no need to listen to you. I told my kids that if they weren't going to listen to the information in a mature way they had no right to complain that adults lie. What right do we have to be taken seriously if we lie about the things that are important?
But back to Dumbledore. He with held the information from McGonagall, and Snape. McGonagall believes he was too noble to ever use the Dark Arts. She believes he never lied. She says so to him. That is very flattering to hear. Are we all so sure that Dumbldedore kept quiet about his past because of a selfless desire to uphold the good or a more human desire to be admired?
His brother Aberforth's sins were printed in the Newspaper. Albus got to keep his quiet. Snape faced Dumbledore believing he was an ex-Death Eater facing a man who had never been tempted by the same sin. Do you think that was fair to Snape?
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